ISLAMABAD, Jan 2: The National Highways and Motorway Police has been allowed to make recruitments on the vacant posts.

Secretary communications Sajid Hussain Chatta assured the Motorway Police inspector general Mohammad Raffat Pasha that the shortage of employees would be overcome. This assurance was given in a briefing at the NHMP headquarters on Wednesday.

The Motorway Police IG gave briefing to the secretary. He informed the secretary of the shortage of staff which, he said, had been badly affecting the performance of motorway policing.

Giving details about the motorway police achievements, he said that when the Motorway Police was introduced, the fatalities rate per ten thousand vehicles was 18.7 per cent. He said that Norway and the USA had the lowest fatalities rates of 1.2 per cent and 2.1 per cent, respectively.

The IG NH&MP further said that the police created a sense of better discipline on roads, created awareness of road safety and also succeeded in lowering the accident rate up to 70 percent.

He said that at present, the Motorway Police is policing on M-2, M-3, M-1, N-5 (from Peshawar to Karachi) and N-10 (Coastal Highway from Pasni to Gwadar), while policing on RCD Highway will be started in February 2008.

He said that the Motorway Police has changed the hard policing into soft and punitive policing into reformative policing. He further said that the NH&MP is providing 2700 helps daily.

He further said that NH&MP has also successfully reduced the highway crime by 85 per cent and more than 300 runaways, kidnapped and lost children were also recovered during the last year and handed over to their parents.

Secretary Communications appreciated the performance of the department and desired that it should be maintained at all cost.